Re: language before Babel Re: Scottish Tribes of Jewish Origin???

From: Ron Hardin (rhhardin_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 11/23/04 

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 22:03:36 GMT

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > Bavel – Babylonian “Gate of God” Hebrew “confounded speech”
>
> Hebrew form of the Babylonian word; and a derived sense based on this
> story

Ah. You sense a connection with the story? You're ready for this perhaps

QUOTE

But let us leave it and substitute a second
translation for the first. It is that of Chouraqui.
It is recent and wants to be more literal, almost verbum pro verbo,
as Cicero said should not be done in one of those first recommendations
to the translator which can be read in his Libellus de Optimo
Genera Oratorum. Here it is:

Here are the sons of Shem
for their clans, for their tongues,
in their lands, for their peoples.
Here are the clans of the sons of Noah for their exploits,
in their peoples:
from the latter divide the peoples on earth, after the flood.

And it is all the earth: a single lip, one speech.
And it is at their departure from the Orient: they find a canyon,
in the land of Shine'ar.
They settle there.
They say, each to his like:
``Come, let us brick some bricks.
Let us fire them in the fire.''
The brick becomes for them stone, the tar, mortar.
They say:
``Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower.
Its head: in the heavens.
Let us make ourselves a name,
that we not be scattered over the face of all the earth.''

YHWH descends to see the city and the tower
that the sons of man have built.
YHWH says:
``Yes! A single people, a single lip for all:
that is what they begin to do! ...
Come! Let us descend! Let us confound their lips,
man will no longer understand the lip of his neighbor.''

YHWH disperses them from here over the face of all the earth.
They cease to build the city.
Over which he proclaims his name: Bavel, Confusion,
for there, YHWH confounds the lip of all the earth,
and from there YHWH disperses them over the face of all the earth.

===
Des Tours de Babel, in _Difference in Translation_

His commentary:

``Recourse to apposition and capitalization (``Over which he proclaims his name :
Bavel, Confusion'') is not translating from one tongue to another. It comments,
explains, paraphrases, but it does not translate.'' 

-- 
Ron Hardin
rhhardin@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.